Related papers: Initial Conditions for Massive Star Birth -- Infra…
Thousands of ring-like bubbles appear on infrared images of the Galaxy plane. Most of these infrared bubbles form during expansion of HII regions around massive stars. However, the physical effects that determine their morphology are still…
UltraCompact HII regions are signposts of high mass star formation. Since high-mass star formation occurs in clusters, one expects to find even earlier phases of massive star formation in the vicinity of UltraCompact HII regions. Here, we…
Several models have predicted that stars could form inside galactic outflows and that this would be a new major mode of galaxy evolution. Observations of galactic outflows have revealed that they host large amounts of dense and clumpy…
I discuss recent theoretical work on the formation and evolution of galaxies paying particular attention to the ability of current models to make detailed comparisons with observations of the galaxy population both nearby and at high…
We quantify the consequences of intergalactic dust produced by the first Type II supernovae in the universe. The fraction of gas converted into stars is calibrated based on the observed C/H ratio in the intergalactic medium at z=3, assuming…
How and when did the first generation of stars form at the end of the cosmic dark ages? Quite generically, within variants of the cold dark matter model of cosmological structure formation, the first sources of light are expected to form in…
Interstellar dust links the formation of the first stars to the rocky planet we inhabit by playing a pivotal role in the cooling and fragmentation of molecular clouds, and catalyzing the formation of water and organic molecules. Despite its…
High spatial and spectral resolution observations of the atomic interstellar medium in nearby dwarf galaxies reveal evidence for warm and cold neutral gas, just like the phases in our own Galaxy. The cold or quiescent phase (about 20% of…
According to recent models, gamma-ray bursts apparently explode in a wide variety of ambient densities ranging from ~ 10^{-3} to 30 cm^{-3}. The lowest density environments seem, at first sight, to be incompatible with bursts in or near…
Young, massive star clusters are the most notable and significant end products of violent star-forming episodes triggered by galaxy collisions, mergers, and close encounters. Their contribution to the total luminosity induced by such…
The origin of supermassive black holes is an open question that has been explored considering gas- and collision-based formation channels to explain the high number of quasars observed in the early Universe. According to numerical…
The transition between the nearly smooth initial state of the Universe and its clumpy state today occurred during the epoch when the first stars and low-luminosity quasars formed. For Cold Dark Matter cosmologies, the radiation produced by…
(abridged) We use large cosmological simulations to study the origin of primordial star-forming clouds in a Lambda CDM universe, by following the formation of dark matter halos and the cooling of gas within them. To model the physics of…
In this review, I present the case for how massive stars may form through stellar collisions. This mechanism requires very high stellar densities, up to 4 orders of magnitude higher than are observed in the cores of dense young clusters. In…
We present a model for the formation of massive black holes ($\sim 1000 \msun$) due to stellar-dynamical processes in the first stellar clusters formed at early cosmic times ($z\sim10-20$). The high redshift black hole seeds form as a…
We examine the environment of star-forming galaxies selected in the 2dFGRS. We find that bright star-forming galaxies display a significant deficit of faint neighbours relative to passive galaxies. If a deficit in fainter companions implies…
Interstellar dust spans a wide range in size distribution, ranging from ultrasmall grains of a few Angstroms to micrometer-size grains. While the presence of nanometer-size dust grains in the Galactic interstellar medium was speculated six…
We explore the relationship between gas and dust in massive star-forming regions by comparing physical properties derived from each. We compare the temperatures and column densities in a massive star-forming Infrared Dark Cloud (IRDC,…
We present a search for infrared dust emission associated with the Leo cloud, a large intergalactic cloud in the M96 group. Mid-infrared and far-infrared images were obtained with IRAC and MIPS on the Spitzer Space Telescope. Our analysis…
The first stars in the Universe form when chemically pristine gas heats as it falls into dark matter potential wells, cools radiatively due to the formation of molecular hydrogen, and becomes self-gravitating. We demonstrate with…